Hi everyone!
I am preparing my application as a promising exceptional candidate, and I would greatly appreciate your reviews.
Here is my career summary:
Career Summary:
- Product Manager - Core Team at Company A (HR-Tech). Helped reach 40K users, 200+ paid customers in first 3 months.
- Associate Product Manager at Company B (Top fintech/payment provider in Turkey). Scaled B2C business via mobile app and digital wallet.
- Product Manager at Company C (Crypto AI startup). Pivoted product in first year, increasing valuation from $30M to $60M.
Letters of Recommendation:
- Co-founder of Company A (Product & Marketing Lead)
- Chief Product Officer (CPO) of Company B
- Co-Founder & CEO of Company C (Forbes 30 Under 30 in MENA)
MC:
- Reference Letter from Co-founder & CTO of Company C
- Proof of High Earnings: Initial proposal, raises (approx. 2x country average) Also an offer for stock&token allocation
- Industry Recognition: Youngest speaker at Turkey’s biggest Crypto Event, panel footage, event website/social media
OC1:
- Reference letter from second Co-founder of Company A (Sales Lead) - collaborated on sales operations, 200+ paid customers in 2 years.
OC3:
- Reference letter from Chief Strategy Officer (CSO) of Company C (Community & Marketing)
- Screenshots showing numbers/metrics increase after implementations & content creation at Company C
- User counts of B2B (closed beta) & B2C (2 months old) products led at Company C
I would appreciate your feedbacks on the existing evidences I’ve outlined, as well as suggestions for any additional evidence I could potentially include. Here are some ideas I had:
Potential Evidences:
- Screenshots of paid customers & user counts at Company A (per co-founder letters)
- Commercial reports on user acquisition/feature usage at Company B (per CPO letter)
- Sprint board screenshots proving product leadership & ideation at Company C along with Slack messages & references showcasing research impact (though lacking concrete evidence)
- Research increasing AI model performance for a Company C product + GitHub repo & blog post for another Company C product
While the research I conducted guided the teams in improving our products, I’m uncertain how to best showcase the impact of these efforts. (Open to any ideas)
Thank you so much in advance for your valuable feedback and suggestions! I really appreciate all the support.
Your evidence of innovation is not sufficient, you need at least two unique evidence
Hey @Francisca_Chiedu thanks for your reply.
The products I led at Company C were innovative in the AI field, being the first of their kind. I plan to use the reference letter from the CTO and one of the potential evidence items I mentioned as supporting documentation. Would you consider these sufficient, or do you have any other suggestions for effectively showcasing the innovative nature of these products?
Innovation is very subjective. How is it the first of its kind? Aside the reference letter do you have a patent for it? Are you a senior executive or founder? If not how do you show you are working in a new digital field. Recommendation letters alone are not sufficient.
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Echoing Francisca - you need more evidence and clear evidence for OC1.
When I did OC1: After asserting that I was a senior executive, I needed to prove 3 parts of the question - that I was responsible for the ideation of the innovation, that I executed the innovation, and the impact of the innovation. A reference letter is a good way to back up your claims, but as a PM you will need tangible evidence of these things, and because of your title is more technical they may emphasize needing a patent unless you can prove that a patent was not necessary or not possible. To get around this, you need to build a very strong case that illustrates your direct hand in innovation and how that product has done well in the market (or another type of impact).
Since you led products in an innovative field, I’d start with proving that the company/product was first-of-their-kind (do you have news articles describing it like that, even if it doesn’t mention you?) and why the products were so original, and how you had impact or full control on their ideation, development, and release. When I did this, I literally included screenshots of JSON code that I had done mapping the internal product, as well as news articles and website screenshots that showed the product. I’d then use your reference letter to back up these claims, and have a third piece of evidence illustrating the impact of the product and your work (did it lead to further innovation in the space? Can you prove that?).
From above, your sprint board screenshots proving product leadership & ideation at Company C seems a better fit for OC1. If you put a reference letter from company C in that category as well you may have more success building a case. If you can’t prove the tangible innovation from Company A, I’d pivot, especially as the Company A evidence seems a lot more like OC3.
Hope this helps 
Hi @ellagna ,
Those feedbacks are incredibly helpful. Thank you for taking the time to provide such a detailed review.
I was initially unclear on how to effectively communicate the innovative nature of our products at Company C and my role in leading those innovations. However, your suggestions have made it much clearer to me how I can best present this information.
I will now work to gather all the necessary evidence to support the points you raised. Once I have finalized everything, I may reach out to you one more time for a final review
Again, I really appreciate you providing this valuable feedback. It will go a long way in helping me strengthen my application.
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Hi same issues meet here.
How do you solve your problems and get endorsed?
Thanks,
Hi Alex,
I didn’t complete my application yet but I’m planning to send it by this weekend. Here is the list of my current evidence
MC1)
- A tech event speech screenshots and social media posts me on the stage
- Comparison of my salary with the average salary information from Glassdoor and a local platform in Turkey.
- Either a reference letter from one our early investors explaining I led the growth of a product-led digital technology company or screenshots of my contribution to company A’a growth both in terms of marketing and product innovation which led an extraordinary growth
OC1)
- A reference letter from the CTO of my current company explaining my contribution to innovation of new products
- A document of screenshots from sprint board, researches and wireframes I made along with the explanation of why this product is innovative and what were the results of my contributions
- Another document for another product in the same structure with the previous bullet
OC3)
- A reference letter from the co-founder of a start-up I worked before(Company A). Letter explains how my contributions led to a 5x growth in paying customer count, 3x increase in user count and the increase in revenue
- A reference letter from the CSO and co-founder of Company C explaining how I led marketing operations
- Screenshots of Google Search Console for SEO improvements, blog posts I authored and their impact, and non-paid co-marketing campaigns I managed
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I would say it’s close to solid evidence.
And Innovation to me is more difficult to prove since we might overthink whats innovation as product managers.
Hi @ellagna,
I am planning to submit my application this week, and here is the final list of my documents. If you have time, can you please share your final thoughts?
Letters of Recommendation:
- Co-founder of Company A
- Chief Product Officer (CPO) of Company B
- Co-founder & CEO of Company C
MC:
- Salary Comparisons: My salary was 1.5x the average in Turkey, and it will be almost 3x the average following my recent promotion, as mentioned in the CEO’s LOR and my promotion letter. Comparisons are evidenced by Glassdoor’s and local platforms’ salary reports.
- Speaking Engagement: Evidence of speaking at a high-profile digital technology sector event (website of the event including speaker list, social media posts from the organizer showing me on the stage and telling there were almost 1,000 attendees).
- Company C- Promotion Letter: Demonstrating my salary increase and upcoming equity warrant.
OP1:
- Reference letter from CTO of Company C
- Screenshots of research I made and its impact on the final product state, sprint boards (showing my role as admin/manager), close beta applicant count, blogs & demos I developed, and their reach. (Company C)
- Similar evidence for another product I managed at Company C
(Both products were built from scratch and launched under my leadership, and both are AI products).
OP3:
- Reference letter from the Co-founder of Company A, highlighting my contributions to revenue and growth.
- Company C - SEO & Traffic Impact: Screenshots from Google Search Console, analytics tools, website blog implementation, co-marketing activities (with social media reach), and our Discord server with over 3,000 users (managed by me as the sole Product Manager).
- Company A - Advertising Campaigns: Screenshots from Google & Facebook Ads panels, showing the results of campaigns I led and the increase in user count after my product improvements.
- Company B - Feature Implementations: Screenshots from the app store version history, demonstrating the features I implemented at Company B, corroborated by the CPO’s LOR and the increase in KPIs as results of these implementations evidenced by the screenshots of internal dashboards shared by the company’s current Data Team Lead.
Just Endorsed within a week. Thanks for all of your comments and feedback!
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